Whispers in Smoke and Raindrops
by Spazztic Revenge
Summary: (Sequel to The Distance We Carry) She was lost in moments, while he was lost in years. The smoke had yet to clear and the rain had yet to stop, but they had to keep moving forward, or keep getting left behind.
1. Confusion of the Self

**A/N: So this became monstrous. Oh well, more to read, I guess. Since The Distance We Carry covered pre-series and season one, I thought I'd continue and write another piece for the gap between seasons and season two. I was originally just going to write an accompanying piece for the movie, but I didn't want to skip over so much of Ginoza's development and the growth in the relationship between him and Tsunemori, so here we are. So much Kougami without Kougami!**

 **Let me know what you think! Thanks for reading!**

* * *

Ginoza could see little pieces of Kougami within her, especially when the smoke began to waft off of her after long hours and hard nights. The determination and passion that he used to see sparking within Kougami's eyes now flared within hers. That obsessive need to solve, to fix, to protect now ran through her veins as it had his. That restlessness that used to keep him awake at night now stirred within her as she refused to leave the office until well into the next morning. That recklessness that Kougami used to live by was sucking her in, and she accepted it like it was meant to be.

Tsunemori had adopted Kougami's beliefs, his skills, his views. She was becoming the detective that Ginoza thought he had lost…

* * *

She was the one that came for him at the center, eyes bright and sympathetic, smile present, but a ghost of its former radiance. He had rejected her offer, at first. He couldn't go back there, to that place that held nothing but bitterness and regret. He had failed his team. Failed his father. Failed Kougami.

Failed himself.

No, he wasn't suitable for the MWPSB. Not as an inspector, not as a hound. He deserved to rot away, isolated from the clear hues of society. There wasn't anything left for him in his old life, anyway.

The second time, she placed her hand on the barrier between them, wouldn't leave until he did the same. With a sigh, he connected their hands, glared through his glasses in the hopes of shooing her away faster. It had worked for most of his life. She just needed to see that he wasn't worth it, as everyone else had.

"You're still my partner, Ginoza."

The glare faded as the words settled into his mind and a new wave of nausea washed over him. He left quickly after that, didn't allow Tsunemori to make her offer again, didn't listen to her pleas for him to wait. He didn't want this. The ache that came from someone needing him, someone believing in him. It was such a _human_ feeling, but he wasn't human anymore. He was a criminal. He'd allowed himself to fall into the dark voids of corruption and it had welcomed him like family. It was his destiny to sink into this status, but he wasn't going to drag anyone else down with him. He couldn't disappoint anyone else.

He couldn't lose anyone else.

His arm ached when she came for him the third time. He rubbed at the prosthetic, as if the foreign weight of metal was to blame and not the echoes of what was once in its place.

Brown eyes were dull with exhaustion and a heavy weight of sorrow sat upon her expression. She frowned as he sat down. "There is a world out there. A world that needs you. You were a good detective and I need you on my team."

"Dad and Kougami were the good detectives," Ginoza muttered. He prepared himself to leave as Tsunemori rushed him with more words he didn't wish to hear.

"Can you accept it, Ginoza? Can you accept that they're gone?"

Loneliness resonated within her question and he could see it then. Even if she always had the clearest hue in the room, she still felt the weight of loss, of failure. She was still broken, like him.

Ginoza laid in his bed after she left, torn between two worlds. He had finally become everything he abhorred. He had resigned himself to a life of solitude. So why did he feel that sharp sting of hope? Could he really return to that old life he had so carelessly tossed away? Could he manage to make himself useful? Could he learn to accept what had happened?

She didn't need to say anything when she came the next time. He sat before her, calmer than he'd felt in weeks, and folded his hands on the table, organic hand locked with his metal one. "Can _you_?"

* * *

It didn't feel like the cage he had always seen them as. He stood in the middle of the room, light with the loss of his freedom and so much more. But he didn't necessarily _hate_ it, as he thought he would. The walls were an oppressive and sickly green and the sparse furniture accentuated what little space the place had to offer, but the smell that was imbedded into the air around him was so distinctly his father's that he found, for the first time in years, that he'd missed it. It felt more like home than the center had. Hell, even more than his apartment had.

With Dime at his side and his father's paintings in front of him, Ginoza allowed himself to settle - mixed in the old with the new. He had taken his father's place on the team and he was okay with that, oddly enough. He had seen this coming. His fate had been thrown in his face so often over the years that it would have been impossible to ignore this inevitability.

The sudden shift was still a shock to his system, of course.

His glasses sat in a drawer at his bedside and he stared at them every once in a while, wondered why he had once thought them necessary. He had been so desperate to hide, to keep those little similarities between himself and his father locked away behind thick frames, that he had forgotten what it was like to be himself. Was there even anything left of the Ginoza Nobuchika from before? Was that person still there? Or had he hidden himself so well that even his own eyes could never find him?

The office was quiet when he returned, although both of his former team were present. There was a mutual silence amongst them, purposeful in its respect for the time that had passed and the people along with it. Tsunemori gave him a smile, Kunizuka a nod. He sat at his new desk and ignored the chill that slid down his spine as he stared at the screen. The office, which had once been his second home, was now only a graveyard. Instead of his three enforcers working around him, there were ghosts playing with his vision. Kagari who ignored his reports as he hummed to the tune of the game he was playing. Masaoka who didn't care to hide his concerned glances and gave out advice like it was candy. Kougami who…

He didn't sit there for long before a sudden spike in an area stress level had them out of their chairs and out the door. He was grateful for the distraction, even if sitting in the back of the wagon was odd, to say the least. It was at that moment that it finally hit him. It wasn't _his_ team anymore. He wasn't observing from behind the barrier of his enforcers. He was on the front lines, following Tsunemori's lead.

He bit his tongue more than once, stopping himself from issuing an order that wasn't his to give. It was hard falling into his place as an enforcer, a lot harder than he had imagined. An inspector was all he was, all he knew to be. But as time passed, as he observed the new Shepherd One in action, saw how she handled their team effortlessly and with such compassion, Ginoza realized that he had never truly earned his place as an inspector. And Tsunemori more than made up for his absence.

When the work was done and the day was out, he found himself actively avoiding his desk. Their desks. The air was cold, unforgiving on his nerves, so he took to spending more time in his home than he ever had as an inspector.

After spending an inordinate amount of time petting Dime and polishing his chambers into a shine, Ginoza found himself at a loss of what to do. He worked out to pass the time, realizing that Kougami's long, frequent work outs had been for more than just keeping his body as sharp as his mind. It was cathartic, an easy way to relieve stress and let loose all of his tightly wound frustrations. Each hit set his mind free from its usual tortures. Each set took more pain away, kept those heady feelings of abandonment and the betrayal clenching his heart at bay.

When he grew sore and tired, he tried painting. The canvas was there beside its tools, collecting dust in its neglect. What was supposed to be the sea, simple in its beauty, but complex in its depths, was nothing but a mass of blue and green, some patches of black here and there. He sat it down beside some old paintings of his father's, finding that it in no way compared. His father, he decided, had the gift that hadn't quite made it into his own genes.

He stared at the painting of his mother, took note of the detail, the love in every stroke, and realized that he really hadn't known his father at all. The portrait was old, yellowed with time, but with the way it was set, in the corner of the room amongst paintings of the flowers his mother used to grow and nurture, Ginoza knew it was cherished.

Nights were particularly difficult to endure. His bed felt cold and empty, despite having spent years sleeping alone. It was like the agony of losing Kougami to the Specimen Case was renewed somehow and Ginoza couldn't stand it. He could feel the man's presence at his back, hear that dulcet tone singing praises in his ear, all as tangible as it had been years before. But he willed the illusions away, like all the others. He couldn't handle any more heartache. And with Kougami, even in his memories, that was all he got.

Every time.

* * *

Tsunemori hesitated, hand fisted at the door, poised to knock, withholding the door's automatic announcement system. She stood there for a long while, giving away time she probably couldn't afford. She just wasn't sure what to say, what to do. Ginoza had come back to their team and she was grateful, so very grateful, but there was something different about him. He was there, always following her commands dutifully and respectfully, but when they weren't in the field, or concentrating on a case, it was like his mind wasn't present, his thoughts far away. It wasn't something she was used to from the usually strict and composed Ginoza, always focused on the target at hand.

She had originally written it off. Of course he was different. She wasn't callous enough to expect the man to just spring right back after all he had lost. A deteriorated Pass was hard enough to come back from, let alone the loss of a limb and a loved one. She just wanted to make sure he was okay. As okay as possible, anyway.

Feeling ridiculous for spending twenty straight minutes in front of his door, Tsunemori huffed out a breath and finally knocked, waited a minute and knocked once more. "Ginoza? It's-" The doors slid open to reveal a sweaty Ginoza adorned in a pair of sweats and a an A-shirt, toweling the back of his neck. It drew a wide-eyed gape from the woman as she wasn't used to her former superior in anything but a pressed suit.

"Inspector Tsunemori? What is it?"

"Ah! Um…"

Ginoza glanced down at himself and grimaced, quickly apologizing as he stepped back, inviting her in. "Sorry, I was in the middle of a set. Mind waiting while I change?"

Quickly shaking her head, she stepped inside, the doors closing with a swift click behind her. "Of course not. You don't have to, though. I don't want you to go out of your way. I'm the one barging in during your evening."

"Have a seat. I'll just be a minute."

Ginoza sped into the next room, leaving her to herself. She was happy to have the few moments of quiet, for she still wasn't quite sure what to say. A peppy bark drew her away from her thoughts, however, and she gave the confined Dime a smile.

Ginoza quickly slipped on a sweater and replaced his sweatpants with a pair of jeans. He wasn't sure if it was appropriate attire for a visiting guest; he was in his own place, but he hadn't had any company, aside from Kougami, in years. There was also the issue of what the inspector was visiting him for, especially so late at night.

Returning to the room, Ginoza warmed to the sight of Tsunemori petting a happily panting Dime from just outside of his kennel. It eased his nerves a little. "It seems he's taken a liking to you," he commented from the doorway.

"I always wanted a dog," she responded, longing clear in her voice. "And you are a very beautiful boy." She gave him one final pat before standing back up and turning to the other occupant of the room.

"Was there something you needed, Inspector?"

Tsunemori pulled a face, giving him a small pout. "You don't have to be so formal with me. Tsunemori's fine. Akane is even better."

"Isn't that a bit unprofessional?"

"Not at all. We're colleagues, yes, but we're friends, too."

Ginoza smiled despite himself. "You sound like Risa. Only she told me to get the stick out of my ass before she smacked me with it. Of course, that was when I was still an inspector."

She gave a light laugh, finding that characteristic of her elder inspector. "Seems to have done the trick. Do I have to threaten you too?"

"Can you?"

Tsunemori hummed, feigning considering the idea. "I suppose not."

"I don't think you need to," he paused for a beat, "Akane. What are you doing here, though?"

The young woman smiled brightly in response before taking the previously offered seat upon the worn out sofa. "It's nothing official, really. I just thought I'd stop by before heading home. Catch up, maybe."

Raising a skeptical brow, Ginoza shifted, went to fuss with the glasses he no longer wore. "You don't need to do this, you know? I'm fine."

"Do what?"

He gave her a glance, unconvinced by her innocent tone.

"You ever think that maybe I need this, too?"

He didn't, actually. This all seemed like she was simply checking in on him out of duty, out of some form of obligation or pity that Ginoza himself had never spared on any of his own enforcers. But it was obvious now, the plea in her eyes, the listlessness in their depths. The young, ruthless inspector was lonely, and she was looking to him for companionship. A mistake, if there ever was one, but he supposed that he owed Tsunemori to expend every effort to be the best enforcer he could. If that meant protecting her spirits as well as her life, then maybe he'd just have to get used to his position beside her.

And, really, he found he took comfort in her company. The ghosts seemed to fade in her presence.

"I'm sorry."

Her sudden apology caught him off guard, but effectively pulled him back to their conversation. He stared at her, incredulity bunching up his brows. He didn't understand why she was apologizing to him. He was the one who had failed. He was supposed to have been her mentor, her partner, when she had been thrown into their division so soon.

"I'm sorry for what happened to Masaoka." Dulled brown eyes swept along the room, across the paintings and the ash tray that sat on the coffee table, still full of old smokes, now just as lifeless and cold as their previous owner. Her gaze caught on an old frayed copy of _The Running Man_ sitting on a shelf and she closed her eyes quickly, drew in a stuttered breath. "I'm sorry I couldn't stop Kougami. Maybe if I had, he-"

"I don't blame you." Ginoza measured his words, projected a calm he really didn't possess. "Neither should you. Makishima killed my father, and Kougami left on his own." It was easy to say those words, but the facts did nothing to lift the weight of blame from his own shoulders. "Nothing could have stopped him. Once Kougami had Makishima's scent, nothing was going to get in his way of justice."

"You think that was justice," she asked in a whisper, flashes of Makishima's execution at the hands of her former partner playing behind her tightly closed eyelids.

"…No, but Kougami did."

Tsunemori recalled the words of his letter, every bit of it as familiar to her now as her own heartbeat. _That man will continue to kill people. And yet, the law can't judge him. As long as I'm a detective, I can't touch him. This case made me aware... that the law can't protect people._ He was an idiot, that much she knew. Makishima didn't have to die. Kougami didn't need to sacrifice his own life to stop him. They could have figured it out. Together.

But even as he had pulled that trigger, even after everyone was gone and all she had was that stupid letter to cling to, she found she could never hate him for it.

She glanced up, took note of the pain etched into emerald eyes, the weariness written in the contours of his face. If there was anyone who could understand the pain that came with the loss of her mentor, it was Ginoza, once his partner and best friend, possibly more, as she understood it. "You… were more than just partners before… weren't you?"

She watched as his tight expression swiftly morphed into a gape. Tsunemori sniffed and gave a small chuckle, amused by his reaction. "He spoke about you, sometimes. About the old days when you both were close. It wouldn't take a detective to notice the affection in his voice." Gazes meeting, she let a soft smile touch her lips, restless hands playing with the hem of her jacket. "There was a great amount of grief there, too. That's why I never asked him."

* * *

No one ever questioned him about the coat. He'd found it in the back of his father's closet, slipped it on along with a touch of his demeanor. It was like paying tribute to the man and it felt right, playing the part he was destined for. It was easier than finding himself.

Work became routine and he had to admit that it was nice being back with his team. On the job, Tsunemori trusted him and took his insights to heart while Akane visited him frequently after their shifts, didn't hesitate in escorting him and Dime whenever the dog needed some fresh air. Kunizuka had even warmed up to him, joked that he wore his demotion well.

It was clear that Shimotsuki hated him, as well as all other enforcers. He couldn't fault her for it. The ordeal with Makishima and Ouryou had taken her friends and upset her world. In response, she had abandoned her young naivety and chose to fight the evils within their society. Ginoza took her sharp tongue in stride, recognizing her pain. He had held her views once, had been burned by more criminals than he cared to give thought. He still didn't particularly like her, or agree with one so young becoming an inspector, but no one had to know that.

Their team was small, other enforcers still being sought out, but the wicked didn't rest and they still had a job to do. Prepared or not.

When another serial murder case came and the team found themselves stumped, on the verge of their first stretch of long hard nights together, Ginoza swatted away the pangs of loss that nearly offset him. Things were different now. He needed to get himself to accept that. To understand that he had a new team to rely on now. The ghosts were only holding him back.

It was nearly midnight and Ginoza found himself staring at the crime scene photos once more, eyes roving over every detail as he strained his mind to see, to really _see_. The killer was here somewhere, his mind and motivation. The killer's desires and fears were all present in front of him, Ginoza just had to see it. If Kougami was there, he would have already noticed it.

There were three victims, all young women ranging from age seventeen to twenty four. They laid bare on the cold concrete, eyes closed, expressions nearly serene, as if having simply fallen asleep. Their hands were folded on their stomachs, placed cleanly, neatly. They were positioned like their bodies were within the safe confines of a coffin, rather than left vulnerable beside the street. But all of that wasn't what was most significant about the case. No, there was something far stranger within the killer's methodology.

The women had been drained of their blood, and they had been painted in it. In careful strokes and detailed patterns, the women's bodies were veiled in painted flowers. Each woman held different types, but the paintings were all definitely of the same person.

A signature without a name.

The artwork on the bodies was truly beautiful, if Ginoza were to allow himself to admire the work of a murderer, of course. There was a twisted fascination Ginoza felt with this particular set of murders, this killer. The paintings were done with a realistic finesse that his father possessed, and the attention to detail, along with the odd types of flowers, suggested a depth of knowledge like that of his mother's. If Ginoza had been a better son, inherited more of their talents, would he have been able to produce something like this? With his tainted psyche, could he do so now?

He stared at the photos, entranced. There was a message here, somewhere. With these types of killings, there always was, just as Kougami had said all those years ago as he'd let his number run up into oblivion.

They had nothing in common. Their backgrounds were all different, their class statuses and social circles. They never even took the same line on the subway. The only connection the three women held was that they were very attractive. Each woman was blessed with beauty, skin as exquisite as finely crafted porcelain, eyes that glowed with youth and vitality, smiles that spoke of confidence and an enthusiasm for life - as evident mainly by the pictures they had collected from their families, more than their corpses. Although, there was an evangelic glow that seemed to emanate from them, a mystifying radiance that their bodies held even after life.

It was very possible that the victims had been chosen at random, their deaths merely caused by their physical appearances and fate. But they still would have had to have crossed paths with the killer at some point. If there was no common ground for the women, then the killer had trekked a lot of ground for each murder. Ginoza really didn't like the thought of a lack in premeditation. There were quite a few beautiful women out there, depending on the killer's standards, and that meant that there were a lot of potential targets.

He needed to find this guy. Find him and put him away before he could hurt anyone else. But the killer had been good. There were no commonalities between the women to disclose the killer's hunting ground. There were no eyewitnesses to their kidnappings or murders, and the families hadn't reported any change in the victim's personalities before they had gone missing. The cymatic scanners weren't able to detect any suspicious pass activity in any of the surrounding areas of the body dumps, which suggested that the killer had a clear mind or had some way around the system.

It wasn't like they hadn't witnessed such instances before.

Running a tired hand down his face, he stood up and stretched his legs. He was about to go and grab another cup of coffee when a bone-chilling whisper passed through the air.

" _The flowers, Gino."_

His eyes widened as he jolted back to his chair, ignoring the glare he received from Shimotsuki for his odd actions. He brought up all of the pictures in front of him, all three bodies, and tried to make out all of the different flowers. The flora was important. The killer wouldn't have painted them on their bodies if they weren't significant.

Nearly all were different. Why? Was it simply on a whim? Was it out of artistic inspiration? Did the specific types of flowers hold a meaning with each of the victims?

Ginoza found himself very grateful that he had taken to his mother's and grandmother's love of plants and gardening as he had been growing up. It made recognizing and researching the flowers on the bodies before him much easier.

Tsunemori watched the enforcer's frantic movements, his eyes jittering back and forth between the photos and a book of notes on his desk. At first glance, it seemed like he was just desperate to find a clue, but his eyes gave him away. She knew that look of determination anywhere. He was on to something.

She came up behind him, glancing over his shoulder to find the pictures of their victims on his screen. Every time she looked at them she was reminded of her former case - of victims that had been left in far worse states and called 'art'. It appeared that she wasn't the only one. "They're all displayed like cruel pieces of art, just like-"

"I know, Tsunemori." Ginoza swallowed, face grim as he leaned back and pinched the bridge of his nose. "I know." He'd already let that thought linger for too long in his mind, and it left a harsh taste in the back of his throat.

"Did you find something, Ginoza?"

"Since we haven't been able to find any concrete evidence or a motive, I was looking into the artwork on the bodies -"

"You call that _artwork_ ," Shimotsuki snarled with a sharp look of disapproval.

Tsunemori ignored her. "What did you find?"

"The paintings on the women could have simply been designs or patterns that he implemented on the bodies, but I think they hold a specific purpose with each of the victims." He hunched back over his desk, eyes scanning back over his notes. It wasn't in his nature to follow gut feelings. Instinct and intuition used to be alien to him, as he would have much preferred to base his thoughts and actions on facts. But something told him that their answer was there, hidden within the blood of their victims. "Aside from one type of flower, they each have two of their own unique types of vegetation. They might have a meaning to the victim, and, more importantly, the killer and lead to why he's murdering people."

The younger inspector scoffed, turning in her chair to face her enforcer. "You think we should waste time gabbing about _flowers_? We don't need to know why he's killing people. We need to know who and where he is and stop him. You're-"

"No, it's important," Tsunemori spoke, stopping Shimotsuki dead in her tracks. "The meaning behind a murder can be essential. We can figure out who he is through his work."

"As well as who might be targeted next," Ginoza added.

"Assuming they aren't chosen at random," Kunizuka came up beside her former superior, gestured towards the pictures of the victims and lack of evidence, "it's at least a start. Karanomori said that there wasn't anything specific about the type of pancuronium found in their blood. The stuff is definitely medical grade, and in the wrong hands, it's lethal. But apparently it's pretty hot on the black market."

Shimotsuki grimaced. "God knows why."

The female enforcer gave her a brief glance, expression as impassive as ever. "There were no signs of sexual assault on any of them, nor a notice of intent or demands. Figuring out the culprit's motive would be a step. Otherwise we're all just going to be stuck sitting on our asses until more bodies show and he slips up."

"Fine." She obviously didn't care for the idea, but she was out voted. Again. "What do the flowers mean?" Looking towards Ginoza, she sat back, arms crossed, annoyed and impatient.

"The first victim, Akara Shiemi, age nineteen, had what appear to be lilies and vines of passion flowers. The lily holds the meanings of purity, or majesty, and the passion flower is belief or faith, and susceptibility. The second victim, Yagami Rin, age twenty-four, was covered in heliotropes with patches of marigolds. The heliotrope has always been known as the flower of devotion or faithfulness. Marigolds are of grief and pain. Lastly, our third victim, Awashima Kaori, age seventeen, had a large, fully bloomed orchis on her abdomen with what I think is supposed to be nettle surrounding it. Orchis means beauty, or industry, but I think the perpetrator was focusing on the beauty meaning here, and nettle holds the meaning of cruelty or slander."

Ginoza took a breath, looking back over his analysis. It was weird; he felt almost nervous with everyone watching him again, listening to his words. He didn't know why this moment felt so different from all of the others where he'd been leading his team from the front of the room, fully confident and composed. He supposed he really was a different person now, feeling his way through new experiences.

"How can you be so sure about the types of flowers? And their meanings?"

"I used to study this when I was younger. The fact that the paintings are very detailed is a great aid to figuring them out, as well." Shimotski grumbled and turned away with a huff, but didn't comment further.

"What about the third flower," Tsunemori inquired.

He kept himself from flinching at the question and spoke nearly in monotone. "The one flower that is always present. It is a dianthus, a genus of the carnation family. More specifically, I believe it to be D. plumarius, feathered pink. The meaning generally depends on the color, which considering that isn't given, I can only guess. With the streaks on the petals, I would say we're looking at a red, double pink." He looked back down at the beautifully bloomed flower on their most recent victim, suppressing a sneer. He hated this. He hated that this flower was being used in such a way. "Pure and ardent love."

Tsunemori hummed, taking a moment to let the new information simmer in her mind. "Assuming that you are correct about this information, then the next step is to figure out why these types of plants are used on those specific victims." She brought up the file on the first victim on the screen and briefly scanned its contents. "We know that Akara Shiemi grew up in a Buddhist household and was very devout herself. That would explain the passion flower. She was definitely one of faith."

"Her friends at the university she went to said she was celibate, too," Kunizuka added from her seat. "Never even looked at another person with any form of intention, sexual, romantic or otherwise."

Ginoza gave a nod of assent. "That would be the lily, then. The purity it's tied to is generally of the sexual and spiritual nature."

Tsunemori then brought up the second woman. "Yagami Rin was a widow. Her husband died in a work related incident at the Yamaguchi Grain factory three years ago. She had been living with her sister, Imichi Baako, ever since. Imichi said that Yagami visited her husband nearly every day. She had also been trying to get her sister to move on and start dating again, but she refused. Grief, pain, and devotion make sense… Awashima Kaori was still a high school student." The third victim's information then swiftly popped up on the screen. Tsunemori paused, tense with frustration. Awashima had still been a child. "All of her peers said that she was self-absorbed and was known for bullying others. She was considered popular within the school, but most said that they either really couldn't stand her, or was charmed by her looks."

Shimotsuki looked at the girl, gritting her teeth as she reminded her a little too much of her past. Interviewing her parents had been a chore and a half. "Even her father said that she was rude and selfish. She had been sent home from school for accosting other students, and she had even been verbally abusive toward her little sister when at home. Her mom stated that they didn't know what to do with her."

"Cruelty and beauty," Tsunemori stated and looked back at Ginoza. "But what of the… feathered pink, was it? What can that mean? Did he think he was in love with the victims? Or was he trying to get them to love him?"

"Maybe it was more of a love for killing them. Or of the flowers he used," Shimotsuki guessed. "But we still don't know if he chose these women because of these characteristics, or if they were just characteristics that the women held and their kidnappings were still random."

"I don't think they were random," Tsunemori interjected before she was alerted to an update on her wristcom. She quietly left the room as Kunizuka followed that thought.

"He knew too much."

The eldest enforcer ran a gloved hand over his face. He had hoped that maybe his findings would lead them somewhere - that he could be useful, for once. But maybe there really was nothing to the flowers. Maybe they were simply a distraction for the CID to waste time on. "Either way, it's obvious that he wants the bodies seen. They were left in high traffic areas. He was careful to avoid being seen or detected, but he wanted his work to be found. With the information that we have, we can assume that he's not finished and that more women covered in flora will continue to appear until he is caught or satisfied."

"Unfortunately," Tsunemori stepped forward, face grim, "your prediction has come true sooner than we were prepared for. Another victim has been found."

* * *

The steadily falling rain was the first thing to welcome them to the scene. Ginoza found himself stopping just outside of the vehicle to feel it on his skin. He welcomed the drops; each one caressing his skin like the tender fingers of a lover.

Ginoza had always liked the rain. One minute it could be soft, soothing, gently falling to the tune of the earth's pulse. The next it would pour, the torrent strong and powerful – overwhelming him in a chaos that could easily drown him if he wasn't careful.

The one thing he liked most about it was that it cleansed him, and the world around him. The rain washed his mind from all thought, focusing him on the here and now. The rain cleared the city, the streets, from its dirt, its enemies and monsters. The rain was a force that no one could stop, only yield to in its stead.

Kougami was like the rain.

It was odd to find a body from their culprit out in this weather; the women were always left out on clear nights; they figured it was the killer's way of assuring that his paintings wouldn't get washed away. But the victims had also been left near the street, out in plain sight. This woman had been left on a bus bench, protected by the shelter surrounding it. It was a significant change in M.O, which could either be a good thing, or a serious cause for concern. It wasn't in Ginoza's nature to think the former.

Tsunemori's face was dark with something Ginoza hadn't quite expected as he'd finally made it to hers and Kunizuka's sides. He glanced down at the woman, wishing that they had all been given a little more common decency after their death. They deserved to at least keep some of their dignity in such a situation.

"It's her," Tsunemori stated as she knelt beside the body.

"Who?"

"The Bureau has been missing one of its officials for two days now. A report was filed, but most of the information was kept quiet." Kasei had been very dispassionate during her debriefing the day prior. It had immediately gotten on her nerves that the woman, or whatever brain she was talking to, didn't give a damn about one of their own. It wasn't right. "I suspected that she might have been another potential victim, but…"

"The chief told you not to jump to conclusions."

Her head snapped in his direction, meeting his steady gaze. She kept forgetting that he had been in her position once as Kasei's right hand. He understood. Not everything, not entirely, but he didn't have to. She really didn't want him to have to know the secrets of the Sybil System too. She didn't want to know what it would do to him. Still, it was nice to have somebody who understood the sort of pressure she was under.

"In any case, it's definitely our guy." Brown eyes swept over the body. Mitzutani Rima had been murdered and left out in the open, naked and covered in a detailed floral painting made with her own blood, just like the rest of their victims. "Ginoza, what flowers did he use this time?"

Hovering over the body, Ginoza took it in, noticing that the D. plumarius was present once again. Moving past that, there was a smooth, skinny tree that had grown tall from its roots on a broken, discarded branch above her womb and climbed up to between her breasts. The leaves were circular with stout shoots on their sides, catkins blooming among them with cottony tufts. It was surrounded by masses of flowers that were almost too easy to interpret. "The tree is a type of poplar and the flowers are a type coneflower, rudbeckia, if I'm not mistaken. It's a genus of the sunflower family. The poplar can mean time, depending on the color of its leaves, but its most popular meaning is courage. Rudbeckia means justice."

Tsunemori bit her lip, staring back down at the body. "She was fairly high up in the Bureau, not very well liked, but that was because she was almost dogged in her pursuit of justice. She handled a lot of the political aftermath of the CID's tough cases. Or so I've heard. Her actual job within the PSB is kept confidential."

"So based on the information, she fits with the purpose of the flowers," Kunizuka spoke. "We're thinking this isn't random, right? But is this his main purpose? Was it his goal to attack the Public Safety Bureau? Make us look weak?"

"Or is it a political statement?"

Tsunemori shook their comments off. "I don't think so. Strip away her title and she's just another beautiful woman with flowers that match her drives and personality. I don't think this is about us at all. She was probably just another victim with that job." _Although, he would have to have known that this case would gain a higher priority by taking someone of the Bureau. Maybe he was trying to gain more attention this way._ They already knew that he wanted his victims to be seen. He wanted to be known. _What better way than to take someone high ranking in the government?_

"Have the scanners found the same markers?"

She looked back at Ginoza, nodding. "Every victim suffered from a blow to the back of the head by a blunt object. He then abducts them and keeps them for nearly a day before injecting them with pancuronium to induce paralysis while they are drained of their blood. He then takes their blood and paints them in it, for whatever reason he thinks is necessary."

"So either the culprit is physically incapable of subduing them otherwise," Ginoza began, "he is unable to charm them into coming with him, or he's too afraid to approach them."

"Or he likes catching them off guard," Kunizuka added.

Tsunemori turned away from the body and scanned the streets, seeing a few onlookers blocked by their drones. "But we have a new concern. If she was taken two days ago and we just found Awashima's body yesterday, then he still had Awashima when he abducted Mitzutani."

"That's probably the reason for the change in body dump. He couldn't wait." Ginoza frowned, finding that he had been right. This change wasn't in their favor. "He's escalating."

"And that means… he could already have his next victim."


	2. A Clear Divide

**A/N: Thank you for the follows and favorites. Special thanks to RainSpell for their kind review.**

 **Here's chapter two! Hope you enjoy and review!**

* * *

 _She couldn't move. She couldn't see. All she could do was think, and listen._

 _It was like being in a constant state of suspension. Just floating along with nothing but a tangled web of thoughts and energies to ground you. The voices shattered her own consciousness, reminding her that no matter how hard she tried she could not escape the other presences surrounding her. They smothered her with their words, their judgements._

 _It was a true shock when it all sank in - when the murmurs stopped and allowed her to grasp the horrific situation at hand. She was a brain with no body. Gone was her true sense of self, her individualism. A network of minds shared her consciousness, and if she could have screamed in her state she would have._

 _It wouldn't have done her any good. The other people, the brains around her, did not pity her. They hardly even cared for her. Her mind was simply an addition, a way to make them better. With or without her cooperation the system had complete control._

 _The murmurs returned, soon growing in volume as they all spoke at once. Heightened voices argued and she couldn't think within the mounting chaos. They wouldn't stop talking. Even after she begged and pleaded, it continued. She felt as if she were going mad. What had she done to deserve this form of undeniable insanity? How had this happened? She had sworn that she would never become one of them, not as a part of their machine, nor as their puppet. She had her own will and was going to use it to better their society. But what had gone wrong? When had she lost herself and joined them? What had she turned into to consent to this? What kind of person would choose this existence?_

 _Was she even human anymore?_

 _When she brought herself back to her new reality, she came to realize that her now shared consciousness had grown quiet. Through the silence, she could hear those words that had sealed her fate._

 _"Come, Tsunemori Akane. Let us make this world an even better place."_

 _She was now a part of the system that she despised._

 _The system that couldn't be stopped._

* * *

Tsunemori bolted upright in her bed, her skin clammy as it stuck to her cotton sheets and her limbs shaking with unrestrained fear. Her chest heaved with harsh breaths as her heart pounded within her rib cage. It was the same dream. It was always the same dream.

When she managed to calm herself, she stood, quickly muting her servant AI. She didn't need to know that she still had a couple more hours left to sleep. She could feel it in her aching muscles and the stagnant exhaustion fogging her mind. After a shower, she sat at her table and sipped a cup of coffee as she checked for any updates on her wristcom. She knew she couldn't keep dwelling on her nightmares. They were in the middle of a case and those women needed her attention the most.

There was nothing new and she sat back with a sigh. It was only a matter of time before another victim showed up – another life lost that could have been prevented had they acted faster, worked harder, found more. There were no real leads and she felt vaguely like a dog chasing its prey, so close to its prize, but too far away to ever catch it. It was a feeling she was becoming accustomed to.

It was this feeling that led her over to the drawer of her desk, soon pulling out something she'd never actually thought she would use. A pack of cigarettes laid in her palm. She had picked them up one night months before, after the second time Ginoza had rejected her invitation to join her team. It was Kougami's brand, for she knew nothing else. Somehow, after being in its presence for so long, the smoke was the only thing that could truly calm her anymore. It focused her thoughts better than any therapy exercise, and it wasn't like her hue ever got clouded enough to warrant one of those. She was powder blue, light and airy as expected.

She didn't smoke it directly, not that she didn't think anything of the secondhand smoke either, as Candy was always there to kindly remind her. It was just nice, being able to act like she was in control again. Like he was there again. Like she wasn't alone in such chaos.

It was then that her wristcom lit up, a voice call from her enforcer. Her lips twitched up into a smile. "Yes, Ginoza."

 _"I hope I didn't wake you."_

"Neither of us are getting the sleep we need, it seems."

 _"I'd like to ask for a favor. I think it could help our case."_

She stubbed out the cigarette, letting the last remnants of its essence permeate her lungs. "What kind of favor?"

 _"There's… a woman that I think could have knowledge that would be very beneficial for us. She's an old mentor of mine, actually."_

"What's her name?" Ginoza sounded uncomfortable at the topic, but she supposed she shouldn't have been surprised. He kept most of himself and his past reserved from outsiders.

 _"Renato Sakura. She's a professor and an expert in the theoretical meanings behind plants, flowers and any type of vegetation… We don't have any leads, so I thought she might find some sort of significance to the paintings that I may have missed or misrepresented."_

Tsunemori thought for a moment. Bringing a civilian into their mess wasn't something she thought highly of, but the woman was an expert with potentially helpful information. _It isn't like you haven't done such things before._ She could only hope that this wouldn't end the same way for her as it had for Professor Saiga.

"Alright, meet me in the office. When do you think is a socially acceptable hour to be knocking on her door?"

* * *

The house was different than he remembered. It was smaller, older. He remembered days when he felt like it towered over him, its tall three stories and grand windows that overlooked the entire grounds. He remembered days when the house seemed to exude a wisdom of its own, like the floorboards held a depth of knowledge not even a scholar could triumph. But he was too young in those days to really understand such a house – what it had meant to his family, to him.

Massive trees seemed to protect the estate, keeping it lost within its own little world. Large greenhouses stood out from the back yard, nearly as big as the main house itself. A pond sat off to the side near the outskirts of the property, shaded by a lonely willow. The rest of the grounds held seas of lush grass and beautiful bushes of azaleas, rhododendrons, hydrangeas, and the like. The place was its own paradise, and that hadn't changed in the years Ginoza had grown. The air smelled the same, fresh and light with life, nothing like what one from the heart of Tokyo was used to.

"Showing her this file is highly against regulation."

"We're desperate." Tsunemori shrugged. "Just think of it like sharing the information with a suspect at headquarters when we're trying to get them to talk."

"I hardly like thinking of her as a suspect, Akane."

They approached the front porch and Ginoza could feel Tsunemori's eyes on him, studying his every movement. Somehow, it didn't bother him. He supposed he was used to it by now. The ever unyielding scrutiny wasn't welcome, but it was a reality he could hardly dispute the necessity of.

Tsunemori knocked on the door and a voice shouted out from the other side, asking them for a moment. Her eyes took in the property more as they waited, noticing just how different it all was. It appeared that this house was much like Professor Saiga's old residence. There wasn't much technology to speak of, even less than his home had held. There were no cameras, no alarm systems, no environment holos, nothing. It was like another world.

Tsunemori gave Ginoza another glance before looking back to the door. It was odd standing there, revisiting some part of the former inspector's past. If she was honest with herself, she was a little excited to know something more about him.

The door opened, the hinges squeaking in protest, and revealed the house's owner. She was an older woman, not quite elderly like her grandmother, but aged, possibly like her parents. Her hair was long and grey, up in a messy bun and her clothes were a light, summer attire, stained by earthy greens and browns. Her eyes instantly lit up at the sight of Ginoza. "Hello, ma'am, I-"

"Oh my! Nobuchika, is that really you? My goodness, how you've grown." She immediately let go of the door and wrapped Ginoza in a hug.

Seeing the woman he had once known as family had him stunned, his body instantly rigid with shock. But as she spoke, with that voice that used to be as soothing as his own mother's, and embraced him, he found the familiarity pulling him out of his protective shell. "It's been awhile, Mrs. Renato."

"Don't give me that," she smacked him on the arm with a teasing smile, "Aunt Ura, as always." She then turned to face Tsunemori, giving a light hum. "And this must be the inspector you told me about in your call. I hope this boy hasn't caused you too much trouble."

Ignoring Ginoza's indignant huff, Tsunemori smiled and shook her head, already charmed by the woman's warmth. "Never."

"Well, come on in, dears. Let's see if this old bat can be of any service."

They sat within the family room on couches surrounding an antique coffee table. Tea was served to them on a platter, a small bowl of wrapped taffies accompanying the little saucers and cups. Ginoza consciously chose to reach for his drink with his organic hand as he attempted to bat away the uneasiness plaguing his insides. The interior of the house hadn't been altered much aside from the arrangement of the furniture. It was like nothing had really changed. One look at the woman across from them set his mind straight.

His aunt Sakura - or Ura, as he hadn't been able to properly say her name when he'd first started talking and it had stuck - was much older now. It was shocking to see just how the years had affected her, just like when he'd first seen his father after such a long absence. The lineage of her life was told within the deep wrinkles on her face. She had winter in her hair now, and he could tell by the way that she held her tea cup that the swollen knuckles of her fingers affected her more than she wanted to admit. But her personality was the same as ever. There was no judgement in her eyes, even though he knew she knew about his demotion.

"Have you worked in the Bureau for long, Inspector… I'm sorry, your name has slipped my mind."

Tsunemori waved her off, setting her cup down before her. "Tsunemori, but you can call me Akane. And, no, I haven't, Professor Renato."

"Please, call me Sakura."

A silence descended upon the room and it was uncomfortable, to say the least. Ginoza could tell that there was a lot that his mentor wanted to speak about, but wasn't sure if she could. "How have you been?" Pleasantries were always a good way to start.

"Oh, I've been well. Still just me and this old house here to keep me company. I still teach, but not as much. I find that tending my babies takes most of my time, these days. I was just out in the garden a little before you rang. Glad I'd come inside or I would have missed you."

She sat forward in her seat then and reached across the table to take Ginoza's hand - his prosthetic one. He had to actively suppress his urge to pull it back.

"I had hoped to see you at the funeral."

He hesitantly met her eyes, swallowing back his coming grief. He had known that this meeting would be hard and it had taken all he could just to make it to the door. But he was doing this for the case, so no more women would be harmed. He was doing this for Tsunemori, so she could know that he was reliable. He was doing this for himself, to prove that he could still solve cases even without his trusted partner. "I was still being treated." He slipped his gloved hand away gently as she gave him a watery smile full of understanding.

"We came to ask about a serial case we're working on," Tsunemori interrupted, sensing Ginoza's discomfort. "We had hoped that you could enlighten us on a few things."

"I'm not sure what kind of assistance I'll be to detectives such as yourselves, but I'll try. I know I teach at the university one of your victims attended, but I don't recognize the name Akara Shiemi, nor her face from the picture Nobuchika sent me."

Tsunemori unfastened the wristcom on her arm and set it on the table before them. She brought up the screen, hesitating only as she gave a few words of warning. "The pictures are quite graphic. I understand if you don't wish to see them."

"There isn't a lot I haven't seen, unfortunately. My late husband used to bring his work home with him more often than not. Nobuchika's father and he used to talk for hours about their cases." The file then popped open at Tsunemori's command, and Renato gasped lightly at the sight, her eyes blinking rapidly at the images. "This flora… it's in their blood, correct?"

"That's what we wanted to ask about. We think that the flowers he paints have a significance that could lead us to him. We were wondering if there was anything we missed."

Sage gray eyes scanned over the pictures and looked at the notes Ginoza had composed on all of the information he'd known about the plants. "I'm not sure what more I can add," she spoke, a note of pride to her tone, "This all seems to be incredibly accurate and detailed." A few more moments had her pausing, though, and she looked up at her two guests. "You have yet to find a meaning to the D. plumarius?"

Ginoza shook his head. "We know it means love, we just haven't tied it to the killer's use of it."

"Well, there has to be a reason he chose this one. It isn't the only flower of love. There's myrtle, balsam, acacia, forget-me-nots and so on. But he chose this, a dianthus, the feathered pink."

"Pure and ardent love," Tsunemori whispered.

Renato nodded, bringing a hand to her chest. "It symbolizes all that love is supposed to be. The trust, devotion, passion, beauty. It's love in its ideal form."

"So say he knows all of this, what is his purpose in using it?" Tsunemori questioned. "Is he seeking out such a love that he doesn't have or can't find? Are these women his surrogates?"

The grey-haired woman sat back, staring at the small bloom of feathered pink that had been painted on one of the girl's ankles. "Nobuchika, do you remember that old tale about the woman by the sea?" At his confused look, she continued. "She spent years living on a beach by the sea because her husband had been lost in it. She even built a house there, so she would never leave his side."

Clarity came to his gaze as he recalled one of his old bedtime stories. "Her husband was a sailor. He died at sea and they were never able to find his body. She was convinced that his soul wouldn't leave her and that he had made himself a part of the ocean until the day she could join him in the afterlife. So she went out to where he was last seen and stayed there, never wanting to part from him again."

"Exactly."

"But I don't-"

She held up a lone, bony finger. "Remember the stable boy?"

"Right. She had been a farm girl and the stable boy had been infatuated with her, but I still don't-"

"What was it he gave her every day to tell her his feelings in the only way he knew how?"

His brow furrowed as he thought, before realization hit him like a truck. "The D. plumarius… He gave her feathered pink every day to let her know that he loved her. She never figured it out, though."

"But he stayed by her side and watched over her even after her marriage and her husband's death. And when she finally passed he created a portrait of her on that beach."

"It was made out of the flowers..."

Tsunemori looked between the two of them, a little lost. "It has to do with the story, then?"

"He made that work as his final attempt at confessing his love for her," Ginoza spoke, amazed at the connection. _This could be the motive we're looking for..._ "Mixed in were two other flowers that were symbols of her personality." It all fit. Although, he wasn't sure how it was going to help them find who was responsible. There may have been a connection, but how were they supposed to utilize it? And how were they supposed to know, beyond doubt, that the story had anything to do with the murders at all?

The door opened and shut, drawing their attention. "You inside, Sakura?"

"The family room, dear!" she hollered as Tsunemori closed the screen and snapped the device back on.

A man soon entered the room, staring at all of the foreign faces with an uneasy smile. He was young, not much older than Tsunemori, to Ginoza's estimation. He didn't even seem to be much taller than her, either. His hair was neatly combed, and he was dressed smartly with a messenger bag on one shoulder. He pushed his wire-framed glasses up his nose in an obvious sign of nervousness.

"Um, hello."

"Right, introductions." Renato stood, waving a hand at her guests. "These are members of the MWPSB, Tsunemori and Ginoza. They're here looking into a few murders that have been occurring in the city."

Ginoza watched as he blanched at the information, but it wasn't a surprise. It wasn't every day that the Bureau showed up on your doorstep.

"And this is Kenshi Takaya. He's a graduate student that is assisting in some of my courses. He's been _so_ helpful."

Clearing his throat, he gave a slight wave. "Pleased to meet you."

"The candies! You must try them." Renato pulled out two wrapped taffies from within a dish in the middle of the tea tray and passed them to her two guests. "They're from a little ice cream parlor downtown that makes them specially. I swear they taste just like the flavors they have in that shop. Takaya gave them to me when we were celebrating his birthday a few days ago."

"Oh, happy birthday." Tsunemori smiled at Kenshi before slipping the candy into her mouth. She wasn't one for taffy, but it did taste just like cookies and cream ice cream. She watched as Ginoza carefully tucked his into his pocket.

"Thanks."

"Are you heading back to campus anytime soon?" Renato asked as she sat back down.

"I was going to see if you needed a ride there today, actually."

"I don't think I'll be going. My head's been a little fuzzy since I woke up. Would you cover my three o'clock Ikebana class, please?"

His face fell, but he nodded all the same. "Of course. I'll see you tomorrow, then. It was nice meeting the two of you." With an awkward bow, he departed, nearly tripping over himself as he left the house.

"Such a jumpy boy. It amazes me how he can teach just fine, but carrying on small talk makes him a jittery mess."

"We should be going, too. Thank you-" She gave him a stern look that stopped him in his tracks. "Aunt Ura."

She quickly swooped in for another hug. "It was no trouble at all. Don't be a stranger. You too, Akane."

"Of course, Sakura."

They made their way out to the car, all thoughts on the conversation before as they attempted to connect the dots. "So we're thinking he's killing and painting these women as a confession for someone he loves? Maybe out of frustration because it is unrequited?"

He glanced at Tsunemori as he opened his car door. "If he's basing it off of the story, I believe so, but it's still only a guess."

"A guess is going to have to be enough for now." Before either of them could get in the car, Renato came out of the house, waving her arms frantically and yelling at them to wait. By the time she made it to them at the end of her driveway she doubled over, huffing out short, heavy pants.

"I… remembered something. Can I see the photos again?" Tsunemori brought the screen up from her wristcom once more and the older woman frowned as her eyes scanned back over the pictures of the victims. "I had a student last semester that gave me this." She handed Ginoza a well-loved notebook she'd had tucked under her arm. "She was an art major that took my class to get a better grasp on the general composition of certain flora. She gave me the notebook in gratitude. Said that I helped her pass a very important deadline with my teachings."

Ginoza began to flip through its pages, many so full of lead that his fingertips came back silver. The drawings ranged from sketches to full out masterpieces. They were definitely the work of a very admirable artist. One very telling thing about the work, though, was that much of it consisted of death - dying plants, trees cut down in their prime, fruit decaying to waste, rotting animal carcasses… Even dead people. The drawings were gorgeous in detail, but disturbing in genre.

"About ten pages from the back."

He followed Renato's direction only to open up to a sight that he recognized all too well. There was a woman laying naked on the page. Her features were set into a calm serenity, hands folded, this time almost in prayer, and her body was covered in multiple types of flowers. Most notably present, was the feathered pink.

* * *

"You don't think it's too soon?" Ginoza asked as the car sped its way toward the tower. "Sending Shimotsuki out to apprehend a suspect alone?"

Tsunemori crinkled her nose at the question. "It's a little soon, I'll admit. But it's been months, and it's hardly her first day. Not that that means much in our line of work." She sent a smirk Ginoza's way, the situation reminding her sharply of her own first few hours on the job. "Besides, she has Kunizuka backing her up." Her hands gripped the steering wheel, her fingers tense with concern. It was a useless gesture since she had taken the car out of manual drive ten minutes before. "Even with the notebook and the fact that she went to the same school as our first victim, we don't have much proof that Kayabuki is who we're looking for, and we definitely don't have enough to get another division involved. But if we wait…"

"We risk losing another girl."

They sat in silence for a few moments before Tsunemori shook it off. Shimotsuki and Kunizuka would be fine. She was sure of it. "I didn't know you had an aunt?"

Confusion descended upon his brow as he looked to the young woman beside him. It was a distraction, he knew. There was nothing more they could do for the case, and worrying would only cause them more mental stress. He hesitated to talk, but gave easily enough under her heavy gaze. "She's not really my aunt. She and my mother grew up together. The Renatos were like a second family to me… I lived with them for a while after my mother passed."

His answer only sparked more questions in the young inspector's mind, but she held her tongue. "That book… What is it called?"

" _A Flower by the Sea_ …" He remembered a time when he had loved that story. With the book being one of his mother's favorites, she had spent many nights reading it to him before bed. It was such a tragic love story, and he could never understand how such a beautiful emotion could inflict such anguish.

Not until he grew older, of course. After he had learned just how cruel love was.

Love always left someone waiting. A woman waiting for her husband to come home to her. A man waiting for his longing gaze to be noticed. In the end, all that was left was more waiting, more hope that only brought despair. Love was a cruel, cruel torture.

And Ginoza was glad to be rid of it.

* * *

"We brought her in without incident. She seems genuinely confused as to why we brought her here, but she's willing to cooperate," Kunizuka supplied as they all gathered back together.

"Willing enough," Shimotsuki muttered, a terse frown pulling at the corners of her lips. "She says she's never met an Akara Shiemi nor any of the other victims, and she has an alibi. I took the liberty of asking about her whereabouts during the murders. She was in Sapporo on a student trip during the first two abductions and murders. Karanomori confirmed this with her communicator log, along with her transaction history and footage from the hotel she was staying at."

"Have any other students been able to corroborate her whereabouts?" Ginoza asked from Tsunemori's side. Shimotsuki's eyes widened as her mouth moved soundlessly to answer the question that she obviously hadn't been prepared for.

Tsunemori gave a light hum in thought. "She seems to have a tight alibi already, but we'll check into that."

The younger inspector closed her mouth with a swift click as she recovered. "But she _couldn't_ have been there. What more evidence do you need? She couldn't have abducted Akara or Yagami if she was physically somewhere else."

The pleading tones of her words gave Tsunemori pause, her brown orbs meeting Shimotsuki's deeply strained ones. "Technology and information can be manipulated. We should cover all of our bases and make sure that her presence was witnessed for the entire duration of her time in Sapporo." Shimotsuki looked like she wished to say more, but she kept any further protests to herself and gave a curt nod. "I'd like to ask her some more questions. Shimotsuki will accompany me. Kunizuka, have Karanomori get a list of students that attended the trip and gather all of their contact information. We'll need to make some calls. And Ginoza," She turned, meeting his gaze with a subtle look of urgency and a hidden meaning gleaming in her eyes, "check any other leads that may help."

They all dispersed, following their lead inspector's instructions, but Ginoza continued to stand there, body frozen by the weight of importance. What was he supposed to do? What _exactly_ was he supposed to do with the information they'd gathered that morning? They had a possible motive, that was all. If Kayabuki wasn't their killer, then they had no new evidence, no new suspects, just a story that he'd rather not remember.

Shimotsuki gave him a suspicious glare over her shoulder, her sharp eyes probably having caught the look meant only for him, before she disappeared into the interrogation room behind Tsunemori. As quiet solitude enveloped him, he tried not to think too hard about the time passing as he stood there. About the girls that could have been dying while he allowed himself a moment to breathe. The whole day had been long. This entire case had been nothing but arduous. But he had to press forward. He had people to find, a task to fulfill, and a purpose to attain.

He walked into the office and was met with the odd sight of Karanomori. It was rare to see her outside of her lab, even rarer to see her among their workstations. She was with Kunizuka, their bodies close enough and their expressions warm enough to have made the old Ginoza uncomfortable and more than a little agitated. Fraternization between the two wasn't against the department's rules, but such interaction would have made him call their judgements into question, once upon a time. As it was, the affirmation of their relationship wasn't a revelation - he'd had his suspicions before, as he hadn't been the executive officer for nothing - but it did serve to make his chest ache to just this side of bitter. The small touch of the blonde tech's hand against Kunizuka's thigh reminded him of _his_ light touches and quiet gestures. And just like that, Ginoza was swept up in the past once more, lost within the memories he kept trying to bury.

All he could think about were the subtle brushes of Kougami's hand against his own when they were in the quiet spaces of the office alone. The press of his body as he'd lean against him ever so slightly in the elevator. The way he would pat Ginoza's back in greeting and let his hand linger there for the briefest of moments, reckless smile at his lips and a promise of so much more in his eyes. They were all simple gestures, but the love and devotion present behind each one was what made them special and unforgettable.

"I still say a mohawk would suit me better… Maybe I should cut it…"

Ginoza finally filtered those unnecessary and completely unhelpful thoughts out of his head as he made his way to his desk. They hadn't noticed him yet, as Karanomori's eyes were fixed upon the female enforcer as she fingered her ponytail.

Karanomori rose a brow, speaking with her cigarette perched at the side of her mouth. "Do that and you'll be spending quite a few nights alone until it grows back," she said, a teasing lilt to her voice.

"Kagari thought it was a great idea."

"And knowing Shuusei, he would have been the one to chop off your pretty hair before giving himself one, too."

Kunizuka chuckled, though there was a muted sorrow in the depths of her blue irises. "Yeah, probably…"

Before he could overhear or see any more of their private affairs, Ginoza cleared his throat, the two withdrawing from each other almost instantly. "Am I interrupting something?"

Kunizuka turned back to her screen at her station while Karanomori turned towards him, taking her vice from her mouth as she blew the smoke off to the side. "Not at all. We were just talking about how dashing you look with that new cut."

A faint smile twitched across his lips. "I'm sure."

"Can't say I miss the glasses much," she added, crossing her left leg over her right as she sat back, "Has anyone ever told you that you have the loveliest set of bedroom eyes, _Nobu_?"

Little nicknames and such obnoxious flirting from the analyst used to piss him off in the old days. Now he just found it amusing. She meant nothing by it, and he could see now that she really was a devoted partner at her core. He was beginning to realize what Kougami had meant by how a clouded hue could lend you a form of clarity. "Actually someone has. And easy compliments got them nowhere, as well," he replied with a smirk, settling himself down into his chair.

A flicker of surprise reached her face before her smile grew and she gave a wink. "I heard you've been very valuable on this case. I didn't know you were so well versed in the language of flowers."

His smile slowly fell away as he refocused on the notes before him. "Not many did."

Their conversation died out from there as the two women finished their business and Karanomori snuck back into her lab. Kunizuka kept to herself, as she usually did, and Ginoza stared down at one of the crime scene photos on his screen. The delicate bloom of a carnation stared back, eviscerating any resolve he had previously conjured up.

 _Not many did, indeed._

* * *

 _They'd been walking home from a date one night. Their dinner had been nice and calm, even as it had occurred within the earliest hours of the morning, thanks to another long shift. They left tipsy from the wine, but drunk off of the easy atmosphere and the company of each other. Quiet moments together had been hard to come by within recent weeks and this served as a supreme reminder of what they had. Of what they shared no matter what they had to endure._

 _Being only a few blocks from Ginoza's apartment, Kougami had decided that he would walk Ginoza home. It was a peaceful and warm night as they walked hand in hand beneath the city lights. Neither felt the need to break the silence they'd lapsed into. It was comforting, the quiet and the warm weight of Kougami's hand. The way he would squeeze it every once in a while, like he was making sure Ginoza knew he was really there. That it was real._

 _"So," the older of the two began, "is the rose really the ultimate symbol of love?"_

 _Ginoza side-eyed him from beneath the fringe of his long bangs. "Actually the red, double pink dianthus is the truest symbol of love and devotion."_

 _Kougami gave a slow, uncomprehending blink in response. "… A what?"_

 _Ginoza laughed, the sound freed from his throat in a rare moment of carelessness. "In simpler terms, a carnation."_

 _"See, now that I can understand. So, like, a reddish, pinkish carnation?"_

 _Breathing out another small chuckle, he felt Kougami squeeze his hand once more. "Something like that." They walked onto his block, into the more domestic part of the city. It was quieter in the earlier hours, at least in that area. Nothing was there to hinder their time together. The only sound to accompany them was their unhurried footsteps, the buzzing of the power lines, and the low rumbling of an airplane overhead. A casual moment, but beautiful all the same._

 _When they made it to his door, Kougami turned, connecting their mouths in a delicate, yet all-consuming kiss. Ginoza had just a moment to feel the heat of Kougami's yearning before the man pulled away, and he felt an instant chill left in the space between them._

 _"I love you, Nobuchika," he said, voice low and deep with resolute certainty. "You know that, right?"_

 _There was an unwavering strength behind his statement, but his question held an aching fear within it that had Ginoza nodding a quick assurance as he ducked down to kiss him once more. He knew Kougami wanted more, that he was seeking more than just an answer. But he couldn't give it to him. He wasn't ready bare so much of himself to someone. Letting Kougami know how he felt was too much. Too risky._

 _He awoke the next morning to a small vase at his doorstep. One lonely flower was cradled inside, its red shades and light pink hues shining vividly in the light. With a tear falling down one cheek, Ginoza stooped down to hold it in his palm. It was so tiny, so fragile, but the loaded intention behind it gave it a weight that went far beyond its normal mass. At that moment, Ginoza realized just how much of a coward he really was._

 _The regret ate at him until the last petal fell away._


	3. Treading Water

_Thirty years had passed, and she sat on that same gnarled and twisted log every day, just watching the serene scene with a fondness that never faded. She never felt any calmer than when she sat right there, the warm waves brushing gently against her toes as the light breeze caressed her skin. She could feel him there, his very being enclosed in the salty air around her, in the heat of the sun as it shone overhead. In that spot, every part of her sang with his presence. They remained connected on that beach. And that was why she would never leave._

 _Aroia grinned as the water made a sort of playful dip and splash around the curve of rocks along the shore, causing a slight splash to dampen her skirt. Her husband had always enjoyed playing with her in the water. A gasp escaped her lips as it happened again, and again, as if he were encouraging her to join him. She took the invitation, soon standing hip deep in the water she'd spent decades worshipping._

 _As the sun began to dip into the horizon, her body sunk deeper and deeper into that great blanket of the ocean blue. The water hugged her tighter as it rose, and it was an embrace she was all too happy to welcome. With a seam of tears on her lashes, she allowed herself to fully sink into her husband's presence. He was there all around her. She could finally be with him._

 _Frantic calls of her name brought her back to reality. She opened her eyes not to the warmth of her husband around her, but to the cold emptiness that was attempting to drown her. She struggled to breathe, and her body fought to find the surface, but it wasn't long before two strong arms wrapped around her and dragged her up._

 _The grainy sand welcomed her ashore as she coughed up the substances that had invaded her lungs. A heavy hand sat at her back, waiting for her to cease her coughing fit. Another pushed her drenched bangs from her face, and when she finally felt safe enough to look up, she saw those bright amber eyes that were always so full of kindness. "Kai," she whispered, her voice hoarse and tired. She gripped his hand as it fell into her palm, noting the worry shaking his limbs and the dianthus sitting a few feet away. "You brought me another flower."_

 _His eyes were tinted with anger, but there was a resignation there, too. After all, this hadn't been the first time she'd gotten too close, wandered too far into her delusions, and it wouldn't be the last. The fire in his heated gaze burned out, and he gave a strained smile instead. "Of course, Aroia. Cherish it, as much as I cherish you."_

* * *

"Did she say anything about the notebook?"

Tsunemori entered the office, followed closely by Shimotsuki. Her face was solemn, the expression almost just as telling as the arrogant smirk highlighting the corners of the younger inspector's lips. "Just that she gives one to every professor she likes. Four of them, apparently. They each have drawings that are tailored to what she learned in their classes." She heaved a sigh as she leaned on the edge of his desk. "She did talk about the story, though. She said that she heard _The Flower by the Sea_ in her class and was inspired to draw it. I don't think she's lying about that."

"Who is the picture of? Anyone specific?"

"Herself. She wanted to show the continuance of the self, even after death. The flowers match her own personality."

 _A false lead, then._ He knew it had been too much to hope for. He had thought that maybe his contacts, his instincts, could lead them to a solid suspect, but he was just as hopeless at catching criminals now as he had been as an inspector. He couldn't catch Makishima, and he couldn't catch this killer, either. What was he good for if not catching the monsters that threatened their world order?

Tsunemori continued. "I don't think she had a hand in it. Although it does seem like quite the coincidence for her to not only have knowledge of the story, but to have drawn a picture eerily similar to the composition of our victims' bodies, and to go to the same university as our first victim."

"Sometimes a coincidence is just a coincidence." Kayabuki had seemed like a perfect match, and that was what caused her innocence to sting so badly.

"And sometimes it's not."

Sure enough, after devoting many calls to checking into the girl's alibi, Division One was only able to find further proof that Kayabuki wasn't their killer. But her uncanny connection to the murders kept her in their periphery as they refocused on the facts of the case. She wasn't the murderer, but that didn't mean that she didn't have something to do with it, even if she was just an unknown hand.

While the team toiled away trying to find something they missed while looking back over what they'd found, another alert came their way. Ginoza faced the news with a grimace and held back the nearly irrepressible urge to find solace on his rain soaked balcony. They were too late. They'd taken too long. Their killer had taken another life, and he hadn't done a damn thing to stop him.

"Are we even sure this is him? Sure, she's pretty, and naked, but…"

Shimotsuki's question had merit. While this girl fit some of their killer's pattern, there were some glaring differences they couldn't ignore. There were no flowers, for one. The elegant artwork that the women shared wasn't present, although the blood certainly was. For two, the others had been carefully posed and planted according to a predetermined design. But this… She was left in a tangle of limbs, her unblemished skin marred by a multitude of frenzied cuts. Her eyelids weren't closed. Her face didn't showcase a calm tranquility. Instead her expression was a prime example of fear as she had been forced to face her own mortality with her eyes open.

Tsunemori leaned down and turned the girl's face over to reveal a small, but unmistakable flower painted on the corner of her cheek. "They found traces of the same type of pancuronium in her blood, as well."

"What happened? Why the sudden change?" asked Shimotsuki as Kunizuka remained silent beside her.

"These stab wounds…" Gloved hands hovered over the cuts, analytic eyes taking in every gash and crude incision. "They're certainly deliberate, but there's no pattern to them. This looks like anger."

"But why her? She looks the same as all of the rest. Did she do something to piss him off?"

"Why her?" Ginoza mumbled quietly as a thought wormed its way into his mind. "Maybe that's not the question, but why now?" Their killer had been successful with his abductions and murders up until this girl. Why had he changed? What happened to make such a death necessary? It was possible that things just hadn't gone according to plan. If he'd had a problem abducting her or sticking to his ritualistic killing, a change in his methodology would have been necessary. But she had still been struck on the back of the head and the pancuronium was present in her blood. The evidence suggested that she should have been just another piece in his portfolio. The anger would have been unjustified, unless something outside of her death and abduction had triggered such rage. "Maybe it wasn't her that he was angry at."

Tsunemori blinked at the suggestion. "You think this is due to an outside influence?"

"If these women are his surrogates for another, then it stands to reason that this anger was meant for the true target of his intentions."

Her hands ceased their movements, coming back to join her side as she pondered. If it was as she and Ginoza thought, if these murders were his twisted attempts at expressing his love, then maybe this was his way of expressing his frustration. And if this continued to escalade, if his rage kept building, would killing a surrogate be enough? "He hasn't given up on his love, but he's given up on his happy ending."

"What?" asked Ginoza, brows stressed with confusion.

"Just a feeling I have." She gave a dismissive wave with an easy tilt of her hand before frowning back down at their victim. "In any case, he's devolving. Rapidly."

"What do we know about her?"

"Her name's Yuusuke Miyuki, age 19. She still lives in her parents' house, taking care of her sick father alongside her mother. She works part time at an ice cream vendor, but spends her spare time volunteering at… What is it?"

Ginoza's expression only increased in severity at her words. He began to pat down his coat pockets before finding the right one and digging through it. "Which ice cream shop does she work at?" His hand came free of his pocket to reveal a daintily wrapped candy.

"Isn't that the taffy we got from Sakura?" Her eyes widened. "You aren't suggesting-"

"She got them from her TA, right? He goes to the same university as both Akara and Kayabuki. There's a high probability that he TA'd Kayabuki's class. He would have the knowledge about the flora and the story." Ginoza enclosed the taffy within his palm, squishing it in a tightened fist as he met Tsunemori's startled gaze. "Quite the coincidence, wouldn't you say?"

"Sometimes a coincidence is just a coincidence."

Ginoza thought back to all of the warning signs he'd disregarded in the past, to all of the times he'd ignored Kougami, and swept aside his own gut feelings. He was tired of being fooled. "And sometimes it's not."

* * *

A cheery bell rang out from above them before an equally cheery employee popped up from behind the register. "Welcome! What can I get for you?"

"Sorry, but we're not really here to buy." Tsunemori stepped forward, amicable smile in place. "We're with the MWPSB," she announced as she brought her badge up in a holo in her palm. "May we speak with the manager here?"

Ginoza watched as the girl hesitated, her peridot orbs scanning over his inspector before they turned to him. He could see the realization light up her eyes as she figured out quickly what he was. He supposed it wasn't too hard to guess, even for average civilians. With the way things had been going for him, he probably even reeked of a dark hue. He turned away, taking in the rest of the place as he let Tsunemori deal with her.

The ice cream girl swallowed, face paling as she tried valiantly to tame the fear veiled beneath dark lashes. She put her usual happy employee face on and addressed the brunette in front of her. "You're looking at her. Has something happened?"

"Do you have an employee by the name of Yuusuke Miyuki?"

"Yes… Is she alright?"

"When was the last time she was in?"

"She missed her shift yesterday." Tsunemori and Ginoza shared a knowing glance. "But she was in on Tuesday. Really, what is this about? Is she in some sort of trouble?"

"Tsunemori," the enforcer called from across the room. He pointed toward an advertisement that rippled along the holo overlay on the wall. "They give out free taffy to customers on their birthdays."

She nodded, turning back to the girl. "Can you give us a list of your customers that had birthdays on this last Tuesday? It's incredibly important."

"Okay. It will only be our customers that are registered in our birthday program."

"That's fine."

She quickly typed out her inquiry, wary eyes scanning quickly over the screen. "We have thirteen, but only two showed up at this location."

"One of them wouldn't happen to be a Kenshi Takaya, would it?" By the expression on her face, he could assume that he'd hit the nail on the head with that one. It was seeming less and less like a coincidence now, not that that really made him feel any better. "Do your records show who served him that day?"

"…Yuusuke was at the register."

"Thank you so much." Tsunemori bowed. "Have a good rest of your evening."

They made their way back out to the car, steps rushed and anxious. "I don't like this. I don't like this at all." He came to the passenger side as Tsunemori brought up the screen of her wristcom. "What are you doing?"

"Having Karanomori look into him."

Ginoza waited, dread growing within him like unchecked weeds. He kept thinking back to earlier that morning when they'd met that scrawny and seemingly harmless guy. "We were right there. Why didn't we see it?" Why didn't he see it, was what he wanted to say. Kenshi's behavior had been odd, but not too out of the ordinary. The look in his eyes as he'd gazed at Sakura had been a little troubling, but Ginoza had shaken it off. Because feelings and instincts weren't enough. They'd had no reason to suspect Kenshi. And because of that, he'd walked right out the door and brutally murdered another helpless woman. They practically let him do it.

"We don't know it's him."

He knew that. They had no physical evidence proving his guilt. They certainly had no motive. But that didn't mean that the little they'd found wasn't pointing in the right direction. The possibility that Kenshi Takaya had killed those women was just that, a possibility. But that possibility was gnawing away at his mind until he couldn't think of the culprit being anyone but him. They'd met the man. They'd seen him and let him go on his merry way. He could have been killing another woman as they stood there. He could have killed Sakura.

She didn't match his type, no, but the possibility was still there.

A worrying noise came from Tsunemori's throat, forcing Ginoza to end his trail of thought. He looked up to find her staring at her wristcom, a deep unease set into her expression. "What did she find?"

"She's not done looking, but…" She bit her lip, eyes glancing towards Ginoza before fleeing back down. "He's a pharmacology major, and has access to pancuronium." It didn't prove his guilt beyond a measure of a doubt, but everything they had found pointed directly at him. She couldn't ignore the clues, nor could she disregard the feeling in her gut that told her they'd found their man. One more glance toward Ginoza let her know that he could feel it too, and that was enough for her. "I'm getting Division Two on board. His house is our first priority. Then the university."

"But what if he…" Ginoza could feel his insides twist with a foreboding feeling that brought thoughts of his father and Kougami to the surface. There had been such an obvious amount of familiarity between Kenshi and Sakura. His words and body language denoted a closeness that went beyond student and mentor. The way he'd entered her home like he practically lived there… Ginoza cringed.

"I doubt he's there." The subtle panic in his eyes made her question those words. "Call her."

Slender fingers fumbled with his wristcom, and each ring that followed caused his heart to beat a little faster. When there was no answer, he dialed again, only to feel his heart stop as it didn't reach her. "She's not picking up."

"I'm sure she's fine." Tsunemori opened her door, prepared to meet up with the rest of her team and Division Two at their suspect's house, but she was stopped by her partner's shaky voice.

"Akane." He waited until she met his pleading gaze, until she could see just how important this was to him. "Please."

Tsunemori smelt the smoke as if it were wafting off of her own body. She remembered following Kougami's lead, and him following hers. As partners, they'd learned to rely on each other's intuition, to back each other up no matter the fall they could take afterward. That was the reason she had trusted him, rather than the chief and her system, and shot him down when he was supposed to have been decomposed. That was why she had trusted him to make the right call as they'd faced Makishima for the last time.

But that hadn't really worked out in her favor, had it?

Kougami was gone now, and their partnership along with him. He had destroyed her faith in him, and her trust along with it. Left to face her new partner, she had to figure out if she could truly trust him, believe in him, the way she had with Kougami. Within the past few months, she and Ginoza had built a solid partnership together, become much more to each other than when she had been working beneath him.

Working with him as an enforcer wasn't like working with Kougami. He didn't question every thought she had, didn't make her feel beneath him in any way, didn't use her to gain freedom. She felt like an equal when standing next to Ginoza now, no matter what positions they held.

"Alright."

* * *

"That looks like blood." They arrived at Renato Sakura's residence, carefully making their way out of the vehicle, dominators in hand. A new car sat in the driveway and even in the quiet darkness of dusk, the smeared blood on the car door was obvious.

 _Oh God._ He restrained himself from running inside, even as every fiber of his being screamed at him to rush in. He wasn't used to this. Being so emotionally invested in a case never ended well for him. The last time had left him with a funeral he couldn't even attend and a longer hospital stay than he'd ever had in his life. Not to mention the many scars that remained on his frail psyche.

"Division 2 is taking care of Kenshi's house with Shimotsuki and Kunizuka as back up. I have drones coming in to guard the perimeter, but that still means we're alone here. We have to be careful."

He looked down at the petite brunette, seeing her young eyes and small hands that were dwarfed by the dominator in her grip. It was moments like these that sharply reminded him of how small and fragile the inspector was, her age and inexperience well hidden behind her ever-resilient coefficient and her high position. It was his job to keep her alive. No matter how urgent the matter at hand, no matter how frightened he was for the safety of his previous mentor, he had to think of Tsunemori. The safety of his inspector came first. He had to start thinking like the enforcer he was. "Stay back, Tsunemori. I'll go first."

Her eyes flashed with anger as Ginoza went to take the lead. She swiftly grabbed him by the sleeve of his trench coat, jerking him back with more force than necessary. "We're partners. We do this together." She was tired of being treated like her life meant more than those of her teammates. She was done watching her enforcers take the hits time and again. Ginoza wasn't going to end up missing or dead or one of their most wanted. "We share the responsibility _and_ the pain, got it?"

There was an underlying statement within those words, every syllable was taut with stress. He shrugged it off along with her grip. "No one should get hurt for my sake. Least of all my shepherd."

"Your life is important, Ginoza."

"Why should the life of an enforcer be important?" He asked with a sneer. "I'm your shield, that's all there is to it."

"You are more than an enforcer." She came to stand before him, her nails digging into his suit jacket as her hand lingered over his heart. "You are more than the level of your Pass. Much more."

He found himself stunned silent in the wake of her words, eyes meeting her gaze with confusion. Before he could possibly find a way to respond, a sudden scream rang out and his heart stopped for a second time that day. He jolted towards the house, only to be held in place by Tsunemori's unwavering grip.

Even as their predicament hung over their heads, she wasn't going to let him do anything reckless. She'd had enough of that. She needed him to know that she was there to take the hits too. That she was just as willing to lay down her life for his.

Taking her hand from his chest, Ginoza squeezed it with all of the assurance he could muster up. "Let's do this then." He couldn't say the words she wanted to hear, any promises too difficult to speak, and in his experience, far too hard to keep. But the promise laid within his eyes as he said those words. He wasn't looking to die, or disappear. He was there for the job, just as she was. Ginoza was there to protect people, just as they would have been.

He was taking their place, doing the jobs they left behind. Deep inside, he wondered if that was how he would always see his life. As one life in place of another.

Their shoes scraped loudly against the old oak flooring despite their light and efficient steps. Everything they did, every move they made seemed to be amplified tenfold in the silence of the house. His own heartbeat sounded loud enough to have been on stereo. It was so quiet that Ginoza had to wonder if they had already missed their chance. If their killer had already caught their prey, and they had only been left with another crime scene to investigate.

One step behind. Just like always.

But as they turned the corner and the family room came into view, he realized that maybe he wasn't lagging as much as he thought he was. Maybe he'd finally found a way to fall into step beside those that had always seemed so far off in the distance.

Both he and Tsunemori drew their dominators up, trapping their suspect within their crosshairs. Kenshi was there, his clothing stained with too much blood to be his own, and a scared, but unharmed Sakura before him. He stood behind her, a knife to her throat as he stared at the two newcomers with a look of crazed amusement creasing his features. Two full couches and coffee table sat between them, but the distance wasn't the problem. Not even his old mentor being used as a human shield could be considered an issue. No, the complication here was that the man's coefficient wasn't registering as that of the killer they now knew him to be.

Ginoza was struck with disbelief as Kenshi's coefficient ran across his retinas, the number seventy-four never having seemed so cruel. He felt the trigger lock beneath the slight press of his finger, and he cursed Sybil as her voice rang out in every corner of his mind. _Not a target for enforcement action, my ass._

He heard a gasp at his side and risked a glance in Tsunemori's direction. He could see her hands as they shook, her face as it paled, and her eyes as they swirled with a haunted fear even as the light blue faded back to brown. He could imagine what she was feeling. Undoubtedly, this was like facing her deepest fear all over again. But this wasn't Makishima and his dead coefficient that couldn't rise no matter the circumstances. Kenshi had a number. He was registering on their system. His coefficient was just unnaturally low.

The system had judged him. But he wasn't considered a threat.

"There a problem, inspectors?"


	4. The Killing Kind

"There a problem, inspectors?" Ginoza watched as their target's smile morphed into a cocky grin, no doubt knowing their predicament. "Oh, I'm sorry. Only one of you is an inspector, right? That thing would be more useful pointed in your direction, wouldn't it?"

Ginoza grit his teeth, taking the barbed comment.

But Tsunemori didn't allow herself to hesitate any further as she lowered her weapon in favor of speaking to the suspect head on. They were more than the machines in their hands. If the system wouldn't back them up, then they'd just have to face their enemy themselves. "Let's just talk this out, Kenshi. We don't want anyone getting hurt here." Her eyes wandered over to Sakura, giving her a nod before she faced the man again. "I don't think you do, either."

Ginoza watched as his smile faltered slightly, though his hold on the older woman tightened. Ginoza found the action odd. With the way his arm hugged her to his side, it was like he was protecting her, holding her to him, rather than threatening her. The knife had even inched its way from her throat. It was true. He really didn't want to hurt her.

He took that moment to finally look at his mentor. There wasn't as much fright in her expression as he would have expected from a hostage. For the most part, she just looked unbearably tired. Her coefficient, however, reflected what his eyes couldn't judge. Her number was high, and climbing. With his palms coated with sweat, he quickly lowered the dominator from her, it nearly falling from his grasp in his haste to do so.

He gaped, unable to hide his own fear as he watched her lips move. 'I'm okay,' she mouthed. But he could hardly take comfort in that. He'd just seen proof of the complete opposite.

Tsunemori took note of the dilemma, channeling her own worry towards their suspect. Sybil's judgement was wrong, but she already knew what it felt like to be abandoned by the system. She still remembered Yuki's bright face covered in tears and terror as that knife slid beneath her throat. She could still see the hopelessness that had clouded her gaze as she realized that even her best friend, an inspector with the perfect tool to take that horrifying man down, wouldn't save her.

"All I wanted was for you to know." Kenshi's face crumbled even more as he mumbled into Sakura's neck, the woman cringing away from him as disgust tinged her features. "I've loved you since the moment I met you. But you could never see me… Or my love for you."

Ginoza felt his stomach drop. It had been _Sakura_ that he had been after all along? All of it had been for her? But then that meant… The body of their latest victim flashed in Ginoza's mind. All that anger, all of that hatred that had been laced into every stab was meant for the woman now in his grasp. The woman that had his knife at her throat.

"But she knows now," Tsunemori tried, flinching as the knife only grew closer to his hostage's flesh. "She understands your love for her now, don't you, Sakura?"

She caught on quickly as she licked her lips, her eyes meeting Kenshi's for the first time since they entered. "Y-yes, dear. I'm sorry I didn't understand at first. I was just a little shoc-"

"Don't lie to me!" he roared. "I know you. I know when you're lying. Don't you dare lie to me!"

"I would never…"

"Even when you tried to tell me that you didn't feel sick? When I found you nearly passed out on the back deck and you tried to tell me you were fine?!"

He was getting increasingly angered, and the situation was quickly slipping from Tsunemori's hands. So Ginoza did the only thing he thought could help. "You're sick?"

Kenshi's gaze fell back to him, sneering towards him with avid dislike. "Of course she's sick! How could you not tell?"

"And you tried to keep it from him?" He ignored Sakura's bewildered stare, keeping his attention directed solely on Kenshi. Attempting to sympathize with a suspect wasn't really his forte, and it made him want to cut out his own tongue more than anything, but it was the only card he had. Acting friendly with a man that had murdered multiple women, when had that become a part of his job description? "You were just trying to spare his feelings, right?"

"O-Of course. I just didn't want to upset you, T-Takaya."

"So you admit it. You _do_ lie to me!"

 _Shit._ Kenshi was evidently unstable. No matter how many ways they attempted to spin the conversation, the man's anger always landed on Sakura. But they had to find a way to distract him from that anger, focus his mind on something more important than that emotion. Tsunemori seemed to get the same idea.

"I loved the flowers!" she blurted, her tact lost to desperation. "I don't know who would be able to turn down such masterpieces. If anyone had made those for me… let's just say my apartment wouldn't be so empty…"

He relaxed a little in response, some of the tension leaving his limbs as he looked towards the inspector. "You liked my work?" He sounded like a little child looking for praise, his eyes wide and hopeful.

"We both did." She gestured towards herself and Ginoza. "They were beautiful and your choices of flowers were deadly accurate. I felt like I knew them just from the flowers alone."

"When I saw those women, I thought only of her." His gaze fell to the floor, a torrent of emotions reflected in his eyes. "You know when I was a kid, I wanted to be an artist… But my OAT score had other ideas. The system said that my purpose was to _heal_ people. Heh, guess it was a little off."

Tsunemori tilted her head as sympathy came to her eyes. "You went into medicine at the system's suggestion?" She moved slowly as she talked, making her way away from Ginoza, but not any closer to Kenshi.

"It's what everyone does, right?" He laughed, but it was hollow, dead the minute it echoed from his throat. "What about you? Did you always want to be an inspector, or did Sybil choose for you?"

"I chose," She paused, considering how to answer his question in the best manner. "I chose to follow the system's recommendation."

"Just like me, then… I went down the career path picked out for me, became what I needed to be. And the system was right. I was pretty damn good at it. I was even able to create the most effective mood suppressant yet!"

Ginoza's eyes widened at the information. So that was how he was keeping his coefficient so low. He had medicated himself.

He watched as Tsunemori took another few subtle steps and gave a nod that was covertly directed at him. He rose his dominator just enough to catch the outline of Kenshi's body. The man was at eighty-five. _His suppressant is wearing off..._

"But everything still felt so dull. Like I was living a shadow of a life. I tried to find new ways to stimulate myself. Expanded my medical prowess any way I could. It wasn't until I took Sakura's herblogy class that I found what I'd been looking for." A fond smile lit up his face and he looked back down at Sakura. She gave him a strained smile in return, but it was obvious that she was trying not to recoil. "She reminded me that I still had a soul. Saw me for the artist I was at heart. She even encouraged me to take some art classes on the side. I knew from then on that I couldn't leave her."

"Out of curiosity," Tsunemori interrupted, expression bashful. "Where did you get such an idea? I mean you could have just painted her a picture on canvas." When it looked like he had taken that the wrong way, she amended her words. "But that would be too cliché, I suppose."

"Y-yes, Takaya," Sakura spoke, "that was such a… unique idea. However did you come up with it?"

Color rose to his cheeks as his smile grew almost too wide for his narrow face. "You remember Kayabuki Ayami, right? She was in your class before-"

"Of course. Gloomy, but very bright."

"She said she wanted to convey her true feelings through her artwork and drew a portrait of herself bare to only her truest characteristics. It was just like that story you told me, Sakura! When I saw that drawing, everything clicked."

"What clicked?" Ginoza questioned, throat dry.

"I couldn't just wait anymore. I had to show her how I really felt." He nuzzled his face into Sakura's neck, the knife separating from her only minutely as he leaned his head against hers. "That first girl I met in the courtyard. She was unbelievably stunning, just like you are. And she was so strong in her beliefs. Wouldn't let anyone disprove what she knew to be right. And she was untainted by base desires, pure in every sense of the word. I couldn't help but see you as I was speaking with her. I knew she was the one. She would be a testament to my love for you."

Ginoza watched as Sakura grew more and more visibly nauseated as he went on. He tried not to worry, to put his faith in Tsunemori, in the machine in his hands as he watched Kenshi's number creep its way up. But if the elder woman let herself slip, if Kenshi noticed just how disturbed everyone in the room truly was because of him, if Tsunemori said the wrong thing, or if he himself did, then he would officially have no one left.

"It felt so impossibly _good_ to let it all out. Kayabuki was right. With every stroke of my brush I could feel my love flowing through me and into her. It was like a transference of my soul… But it never reached you. I left my artwork for the world to see. I allowed everyone to know, but you never spoke of it. Never acknowledged it, not even once." His grip on her strengthened and she squirmed slightly in his hold. His pained expression was quickly creasing with anger.

"You're hurting me, T-Takaya."

"You hurt me!"

She whimpered as the knife slid closer to her skin. Ginoza had to force his mind to ignore the way her hue darkened in response to his growing temper. "So you had to make yourself heard." The man turned back to him and Ginoza fell into a more casual stance, the dominator just barely keeping Kenshi in view. "You needed to confess again, so she could understand." He made it sound like a question, like everyone in that room didn't already know the answer.

"Yes." His brow furrowed with the same desperation that misted over his eyes. "She had to know. I had to let her know..." His voice cracked, but that seemed to only heighten his distress. "So I made another and another. But she just didn't get it! She couldn't see past her plants and her dead husband! It was just as it always had been. I wasn't going to let her die without her knowing."

"So you took another girl…" Tsunemori prompted. "Miyuki was supposed to be another confession…"

He looked downright torn at those words. He cringed, expression souring as if her words were particularly strident and forceful in his ears. "I didn't mean to do that, I just… I started to, but I just felt so vexed and enraged and suddenly I was stabbing her and stabbing her. Then I was just standing there, her blood dripping off of the knife in my hand instead of my brush. It hadn't been what I'd intended, but… It conveyed my emotions all the same." His lip curled and the knife crept even further into her neck.

"No, don't!" Tsunemori took a thoughtless step forward, but was stopped quickly by the man as he screamed out.

" _Stay back_! I swear I'll kill her!"

"No you won't." Ginoza had his dominator back up, trained for when the time came, but despite his threatening stance, he still attempted to appeal to him. "You love her. You don't have it in you to kill her. I know how it feels, Kenshi. Trust me, I know. You just want it to be over, all of the wanting and waiting. No matter how much you wish you could just pull that trigger and be done with it, you can't. No matter how much you despise her for what she's done to you, for ignoring your feelings, for leaving you to feel worthless, you can't." The feelings spilled forth, all true in their sincerity. But he didn't let himself crumble beneath their weight. "You love her. And you would never want her dead."

Kenshi shook his head in defiance of that statement. "I realize now that maybe she won't ever understand my feelings. Just like Aroia couldn't see his love, she couldn't see mine. But I'm not going to let her die without me. I _refuse_ to be alone, too!"

"You don't want to do this!" Tsunemori kept talking, but the enforcer's sense of hearing dropped out, as did most others. His attention was squared solely on the numbers flashing before his eyes.

 _93…_

 _94…_

 _95…_

Ginoza let out a slow, quiet breath as he prayed for Kenshi's coefficient to increase faster. His muscles strained beneath his suit as the dominator shook in his grasp and his finger held tight to the trigger. He understood Kougami's actions a little more now, the emotions that had led to his demotion, to his final jump into murder. It was like being eclipsed in a flashfire that never ended. A feeling that was completely overwhelming and all-consuming in nature took over, compelling him to kill a man that had killed so many others, had threatened and killed those he held dear. Taking a life didn't seem so outlandish anymore. It wasn't such a personal, or irredeemable betrayal anymore.

 _96…_

 _97…_

Unlike Kenshi, Makishima couldn't be tamed by their system. The system couldn't paralyze him, or decompose him. It couldn't even hold him, as he'd escaped almost as quickly as he'd been caught. Kougami had no other choice.

He had no other choice.

 _98…_

 _99…_

The knife began to make its arc against her neck, but it didn't get far. The trigger loosened as Sybil reappraised its target, and Ginoza was there to take advantage of the system's correction. Kenshi froze up at the first pulse and the blade slipped from his hand, clanging to the floor just as his own body met the sound with a crude thud. Sakura collapsed to the floor shortly after, her hand covering the small incision that had been made as Tsunemori rushed to them.

Ginoza watched as if he were simply a witness to it all. As if he hadn't just felt the barbaric sparks of homicidal intent shooting through his veins. Hands numb, he dropped the dominator to his side. He knew he should have felt something. Joy that he had rescued the last person that remained from his past life. Anger that it had taken him entirely too long to disarm the criminal. Annoyance at how much such a situation had unnerved him. But, no, he didn't feel much of anything aside from a general and very distant sense of awareness.

Later on, as everything moved around him, he had to wonder, if it had been a gun in his hand, would he have been able to pull the trigger? Without the system as his cover, its judgement as his excuse, could it have been so easy? Something inside of him gave him his answer.

And it wasn't all that surprising.

* * *

Time passed quickly after that. Kenshi was taken into custody and officially charged with the murders of five women, the abduction and attempted murder of another that Division Two had found in the basement of his house, and the attempted murder of his most prized professor. Sakura's physical injuries were minor with the damage to her hue being much more severe. She was admitted for treatment and intensive therapy with a high chance of recovery.

It turned out that Sakura truly was sick, but had kept it quiet from most, so it was no wonder that Ginoza, with his lack of current involvement with her, hadn't known. Kenshi had figured it out though, and that, coupled with the idea from Kayabuki, had triggered his decent into madness. But Kenshi was now no longer a threat and the bureau, as well as the general public, could rest easy in the wake of his arrest.

Reports were filed and the hype died down. They'd closed their case, yet something inside Ginoza still seemed wide open.

When everything was said and done, a full day had already come to pass. Too much had happened, and he was far too wired to simply retire to his room, so he slipped out to the one place that had always brought him peace.

The glow was bright and brilliant as a mild chill began to set in over the area, night having fallen only a short while before. It was calming, the view. It allowed Ginoza to settle for a few moments. The city, in all of its hectic, chaotic glory reminded him that everything still went on, people still lived their lives, the world still turned, despite his failings. Despite there being a few less people within its population.

He stood there alone for only a handful of minutes before he felt the cool whispers of a familiar touch along his skin. Long lost fingertips traced along his cheek until they glided tantalizingly slow down his jaw and throat. It was barely a glimmer of feeling, but it gave him a sense of calm in a time when he sorely needed it. Ginoza sighed and relented, letting the phantom share his space instead of dismissing him as he'd done so many times over the past months. It was almost too easy to sink into his presence, to welcome the warmth at his side. He was too tired to force him from his consciousness, his will too frayed to bury those hands back into the depths from which they came. It didn't matter anyhow. He was past the shame, the hatred. As he'd learned in his past sessions, and in his darkest moments, it was okay to indulge in his fantasies every once in a while.

They didn't talk in these moments. Other than the quick tips and reassurances during a case, and the quiet murmurs in the safety of their bed, they never did. It would break the delicate reprieve he could only find at such an hour. But this time the quiet didn't lend him the same comfort it usually did. It was stifling, like a carefully knotted tie that restricted his airflow. He didn't wish to couch these feelings, not anymore. Instead, he let them float along beside him, easily reachable within the air, but not concretely dwelling within him. He'd surely drown if he let the rain settle for too long.

Ginoza turned, facing not the man that he wanted, but the shadow that had been left behind. "I'm sorry I was so harsh, Kougami." The coarse whisper slipped from his lips, unbidden feelings surfacing with the sound. "I didn't know…" He thought back to that feeling of hopelessness, when he thought that there was no way he could stop Kenshi even though he was right there. Even though there was no longer any doubt as to the type of man that he was. He had felt such rage towards the man that had dealt so much hurt. So much grief and regret towards the people he never could have saved. But there had still been a slight flicker of sympathy within his breast, and that had been the most shocking feeling of them all.

"Are we just hiding behind Sybil?" he wondered aloud. It was a dangerous thought, but it couldn't be helped. "Would I have…" _killed that man without a second thought if her voice hadn't commanded it of me?_ What was it inside of them that made them capable of killing? Why was it that Kougami could take a life, when Tsunemori could not? Why was it so easy for Kenshi to go from helping people to brutally murdering them?

The man had been so meek, so small and easily overlooked. He was successful, his chosen profession giving him purpose, even if it didn't serve to fulfill his inner desires. He didn't seem the type to kill. But who really did? Over the course of his career, Ginoza had seen enough people become murderers and criminals despite them not fitting the typical profile. All it took was the right set of circumstances and the right amount of emotional turmoil and mental imbalance to drive even the most sane and rational men down to the level of a killer.

And again, he could only wonder if he was already there. Had he finally fallen that far down? Or was the peak of that level already a distant memory?

No matter the answer, it was too late to turn back now. This was his destined path, the one he'd chosen. The one the system had bestowed upon him all those years ago, and he had clung to it like a lost child. _"I went down the career path picked out for me, became what I needed to be."_ Kenshi wasn't the only one. The moment that recommendation had come in, he'd been hell bent on being an inspector, even went and dragged Kougami right along with him. He'd relied so heavily on the system's judgements, for better or for worse.

"How do we know if we're on the right path if we don't choose it for ourselves?"

Maybe he was being too hard on Sybil. It wasn't its fault that he had failed.

There had been other professions he could have chosen, other paths he could have walked. There had been many moments over the years where he had wondered what his life would have been like had he taken a different turn. Such thoughts were only natural, he assumed. Would he have become a completely different person? Would his life have been easier? Less of a tangle of regrets and doubts? Or would he have faced the same questions? The same unbearable loss? Would he still have failed so effortlessly?

Ginoza shook his head at such useless thoughts. What could have happened was of no consequence. This was where his life had led him, and he needed to quit regretting it. He needed to quit questioning his place in the world, and the system that governed it. No matter its faults, he still believed in the system.

What else was there to believe in?

How to continue on was the true question. He was already growing weary of following this path, of tracing the outline left behind by his predecessors. As an enforcer, he'd done well. He'd done exactly as he was supposed to, but there was still a hollow left inside that remained empty no matter what he accomplished. He didn't know how to fill the void.

He always told himself that he was working to save people, but that was just another one of his grand lies, wasn't it? He was just trying to prove himself to the world, to his father, to Kougami. But all of them had abandoned him. His father was dead. Kougami was gone. The world had turned its back on him the moment he'd fallen from grace. He no longer had anyone to prove himself to, so why was he still here? What was his purpose now?

He could feel the phantom at his side grow colder at his words, but that was just fine with him. He didn't know why he was still clinging to this man. Ginoza felt like he was always left hanging in his wake, left dangling from a slender thread that stubbornly refused to break. He didn't know why he couldn't just let him go. Their love wasn't everlasting. It wasn't an epic love story that spanned galaxies and lifetimes. It had been transient, at best. They were simply two people that had grown together until they finally sprouted in different directions. To Kougami, he had probably been nothing more than a passing fancy. Leaving him behind had been easy. He hadn't even spared him a goodbye.

All those years of friendship reduced to a flickering flame that went out almost as soon as it had been ignited.

But no matter what he told himself, he couldn't let him go. He would hold on to that shadow until it too would fade away. Whether he was the wife or the stable boy, it didn't matter. He would always be there.

"I figured I'd find you out here."

The figure vanished, disappearing into the air as Tsunemori came to replace him in his spot. She looked worn, though the smile of accomplishment still clung to the corners of her lips. Even as her eyes were tinged with an aged sorrow, she still looked proud.

"She's alive. That's what's important," Tsunemori spoke, looking out at the scenery below. "They're both alive and Kenshi Takaya can't hurt anyone else. We did well." He gave her a smile, but it didn't reach his eyes. She knew it wouldn't comfort him, but she stayed by his side, looked out over the same view.

She could appreciate Ginoza's spot, found it comforting in more ways than one. It certainly beat sitting in the cocoon of smoke her apartment had become as of late. There was an easy neutrality to be found out there in the open. Where you were neither shepherd nor hound, neither lawful nor criminal. If only it were so simple. That just one step outside of those doors could strip you of such bounds.

"How did you know that his coefficient was rising?" Ginoza inquired.

"He was sweating. His pupils had grown more dilated. His hands were shaking more." They had been such quick, thoughtless observations. She'd barely had time to process her own thoughts before she was signaling her partner. "Once I heard that he had taken a drug, I was fairly certain that he was coming off of it. Since he was already at seventy-four when we arrived, it was safe to assume that he hadn't taken any since he dumped Miyuki's body."

"Where did you learn to read someone like that?" He had asked the question, but she didn't have to say anything for him to know. He knew that Kougami had sucked down all of professor Saiga's micro expression reading crap more eagerly than any of their other material in school. She truly was his devoted pupil. And, surprisingly, he didn't feel bitter about it anymore.

She had made a wise decision by choosing to learn from Kougami over him. As evidenced, he made her a better detective. She had absorbed many of Kougami's good traits, even while taking in a few of his worst. But maybe it was about time he stopped comparing her to Kougami. She was her own person.

His gaze crossed the small distance between them and settled on her form, fully taking in the growth she'd accomplished. No matter how exhausted she seemed to be, no matter how much weight settled atop those small shoulders, she still kept her head high. She was tiny, and still quite naïve, but she was strong, resourceful, and principled. Above all, she was capable.

"How did you celebrate after you made lead inspector?"

She merely blinked at his question, realizing that it hadn't ever been something she'd considered. She had lost nearly her whole team. She had gained her position only because of Ginoza's deterioration and demotion. It hadn't been the happiest day of her life, despite how she should have felt after having gained such a promotion within such a small amount of time. "I didn't really feel like partying when I was promoted."

"Ah… I think most of us feel that way."

"Really?"

"When Kougami and I first joined, we were so excited. We had finally accomplished what we had been dreaming of for years." He grinned at the memory, remembering just how surreal it all had felt. How overjoyed they both were as they sat on his couch, those same words falling from Kougami's lips as they'd had all those times before. Ginoza's smile fell as soon as it came. "But it hits hard, the circumstances that have allowed you to gain your position. Best case scenario is that the previous inspector retired or made their ten and moved up into the Ministry. For most, that's not the case. My predecessor had been killed only a week before I joined, and Kougami's, well… It was hard to feel happy when the previous occupant of your position is dead or worse."

Tsunemori kept herself from thoughtlessly looking Ginoza's way. She knew all too well the implications behind the word 'worse'. Their team had seen enough of worse, and that was exactly why she had found the thought of celebrating rather repugnant.

"But Kougami insisted that we do something for our accomplishment." Ginoza shrugged, failing at holding back a chuckle. "He said that 'the tragedies of our past shouldn't keep us from celebrating the now.'" Despite Ginoza's grumblings, Kougami had arrested him around the neck and pulled him out to their favorite bar. They spent nearly their entire night there, drinking and laughing the night away. Even though it wasn't really anything different than what they had normally done, it managed to make Ginoza feel like there was something worth celebrating.

He looked down at the petite brunette, the forlorn smile on her lips, and figured that it was about time for a celebration. "Come on, Akane. I'll cook us something up."

It was no Partners in Justice, but it was what they had.

They just had to get used to it.


End file.
